hydra from 35,000ft chris awre hydra europe symposium london school of economics, 23 rd april 2015

Hydra from 35,000ft

Chris Awre

Hydra Europe Symposium

London School of Economics, 23rd April 2015

Hydra from 35,000ft

• How did Hydra come into being?

• Why have we developed Hydra?

• What can Hydra provide?

Hydra Europe Symposium | 23-24 April 2015 | 2

How did Hydra come into being?

• Three institutions: Hull, Virginia, Stanford

– All users of Fedora – http://fedora-commons.org

• Fedora can be complex as it is so flexible

– Lots of effort in getting solutions up and running

• All interested in how a standard solution could be created that enabled full use of Fedora’s flexibility…

• …yet could be adapted to meet local, individual needs?

• It all started at Open Repositories 2008, in Southampton

– (the benefit of speaking at conferences)


http://fedora-commons.org/

Fundamental Assumption #1

No single system can provide the full range of repository-based solutions for a given institution’s needs,

…yet sustainable solutions require a common repository infrastructure.

No single institution can resource the development of a full range of solutions on its own,

…yet each needs the flexibility to tailor solutions to local demands and workflows.



Hydra

• A collaborative project

• Develop an open source toolkit that enables powerful use of Fedora’s capabilities through lightweight tools

• Unfunded (in itself – supported by partner institutions)

– Activity based on identification of a common need

• Aim to work towards a reusable framework for multipurpose, multifunction, multi-institutional repository-enabled solutions

• Hydra ‘heads’

– Single body of content, many points of access into it

• Timeframe – Initially 2008-11 (but now indefinite)TextHydra Europe Symposium | 23-24 April 2015 | 5

Fedora and end-user interfaces

Storage (e.g., SAN, Cloud)

Fedora

Interface

Need an end-user interface

Fedora is the digital repository system, holdingthe content in a highly structured way

The content is stored either locally or in theCloud (currently a slice of the SAN)


Fedora and Hydra

Storage (e.g., SAN, Cloud)

Fedora

Hydra Hydra provides user interfaces and workflowsover the repositoryConcept of multiple Hydra ‘heads’ over singlebody of content

Fedora is the digital repository system, holdingthe content in a highly structured way

The content is stored either locally or in theCloud (currently a slice of the SAN)

Hydra

Hydra Hydra


Why Hydra?

• Why have a digital repository?

– We need to manage digital content

• Fedora has always encouraged the structured management of digital content

– How are files/objects organised?– How do they need to be described?– How do they relate to each other?

• Hydra provides the tools to exploit this and create real digital libraries

– Hydra is driven by the needs of the content


Repository as application …Multiple silos?ETDs

(Theses)

Books, Article

s

Images

Audio-Visual

Research Data

Maps & GIS

Docu-ments

ETD IRImage

DBDAM ? Geospa

-tial Inf.

Records

Mgmt.

Management

Access Preservation?

Tailored? Sustainable?


Repository as infrastructureETDs

(Theses)

Books, Article

s

Images

Audio-Visual

Research Data

Maps & GIS

Docu-ments

Digital Repository

Scalable, Robust, Shared Management

and Preservation Services


One Body, Many Heads…ETDs

(Theses)

Books, Article

s

Images

Audio-Visual

Research Data

Maps & GIS

Docu-ments

hydraScalable, Robust,

Shared Management and Preservation

Services


Collaboration

• We all want the best solution for our own organisations

• We like to share experiences and ideas

– For example, through coming to events like this one

• What makes us decide that working with others may be beneficial?

• For Hydra

– Common need– No identifiable solution elsewhere– Opportunity to be innovative and create new solutions– Collaboration makes open source work


Barriers to collaboration

Inertia

• Waiting for the perfect tool, funding call or “the answer”

• “It’s complicated”, or the challenge is too large

• Ownership of content needs sorting out

Cost and capacity

• Limited capacity/skills within an individual organisation

• Doing “something” means stop doing something else

Running out of steam

• Collaborations get so far…


Network benefits

Economic benefit- Scaling up delivery

Technical benefit- Concentrated development

Practical benefit- Delivering morevalue locally


Collaboration at the network level

• Models currently exist

– SDLC hosting of IRs for Scottish Universities– White Rose– EPrints Services / BMC Open / Digital Commons

• Hydra community

– Mutual interest and commitment to creating common solutions that fit local needs

• Focus on repository software service sharing

– Can other repository services be shared or developed collaboratively?


What can Hydra provide?

• Technology

– A set of open source tools that enable the building of local repository infrastructure• Build your own

• Build on the work of others

• Community

– A collaboration of partners (now 28) who are investing in ongoing development of the Hydra platform

• A range of repository solutions

– Covering many material types and ways of presenting digital content


Hydra technical implementation

• Fedora

– All Hydra partners are Fedora users

• Solr

– Very powerful indexing tool, as used by…

• Blacklight

– Prior development at Virginia (and now Stanford/JHU) for OPAC

– Adaptable to repository content

• Ruby

– Agile development / excellent MVC / good testing tools

• Ruby gems

– ActiveFedora, Opinionated Metadata, Solrizer and othersHydra Europe Symposium | 23-24 April 2015 | 20

Trending


Hydra partnership

• From the beginning key aims have been and are:– to enable others to join the partnership as and when they

wished (Now up to 28 partners)– to establish a framework for sustaining a Hydra community

as much as any technical outputs that emerge• Establishing a semi-legal basis for contribution and partnership

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”

(African proverb)


Hydra Partners

• Three continents

• Multiple types of organisation

• Multiple types of repository


Eight strategic priorities

1. Solution bundles

2. Turnkey applications

3. Vendor ecosystem

4. Training

5. Documentation

6. Code sharing

7. Community ties

8. Grow the User base


Reflections (from Hull)

• Only could have provided local solution through collaboration

• Hydra can’t do everything, but provides capability and confidence we can adapt and implement solutions to meet needs, now and in the future

– Our digital curation journey is ongoing, and we know where we are going

• Relationship between Hydra and Fedora is vital

– Community support required for each and across them

• Success has come through good software design and patterns as much as from ability to address digital curation use cases


To conclude

Technology + community = sustainability


Access

Digitalrepository

Preservation

Management and maintenance

Thank you

[email protected]

(with thanks to Tom Cramer, Stanford, for some of the

slides)

hydra from 35,000ft chris awre hydra europe symposium london school of economics, 23 rd april 2015

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